


Small Primes and Square Roots

by Liviapenn



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Community: harlequin_sga, Epistolary, Kidfic, M/M, Parent Rodney McKay, Pining John Sheppard, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-21
Updated: 2005-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:30:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liviapenn/pseuds/Liviapenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I hope you picked someone really intelligent, otherwise it seems like it would be kind of a waste. Of incubation time, if nothing else."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Primes and Square Roots

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions, Jamjar for beta and help with the middle (and the title,) and Pru for helping me to get to the end. Also all you crackheads who said you wanted to see harlequin kidfic. Well, here it is. :)
> 
> There is a podfic of this story available [here](http://amplificathon.livejournal.com/405192.html), read by cookiemom6067.

CASMALIA, CALIFORNIA  
(NEAR VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE)  
TEN YEARS AGO

"Check it out," Cook said under his breath, "it's the Professor's time of the month." Fairfield and Warren glanced over at the door, then laughed. John looked too. The woman standing in the entrance to the dingy little bar was blonde, and curvy. She wore a black dress, and big thick glasses. Making her way directly to a booth in the back near the jukebox, she started pulling papers and books out of her suitcase, arranging them neatly on the table in front of her.

"Who's that?" John asked. Whoever she was, she wasn't from Casmalia. The one-horse town just outside Vandenburg had a population of two hundred, and one paved street--the one that went straight through it. They didn't have a gas station, let alone a university with a professor of mathematics. And even from across the bar he could tell that those texts she was setting out weren't just everyday math books.

"Ah, the Professor. She comes in once a month, regular," Fairfield said, voice low. "Orders a drink, sits back there and does her homework or whatever she does."

Cook picked up the story. "Every month, she picks up some guy, invites him over to her table. They talk for hours, she comes on strong, and just when he thinks he's about to get some of that? She says goodnight and goes home. Alone. That guy ever tries to talk to her again? She shuts him down _cold_."

"Ice cold. And it's always a military guy," Fairfield added. "We try to warn the officers, but the NCOs can fend for themselves."

"I'd say it's kind of a rite of passage," Warren said. "Makes a man tougher. Teaches him that women are a freakin' mystery."

Fairfield laughed at him. "You just say that 'cause she got you good."

"Hey, I'm an ass man--I saw the Grail, I went on a crusade." Warren took a long drink of his beer.

"Wow," John said, leaning back a bit to eye the lady, discreetly. She didn't look like the type of crazy head tripper the guys from Vandenberg were describing. She looked normal, even nice--a little like John's sixth grade teacher, if Miss Watson had packed on about fifty pounds in all the right places and gone out on Friday nights dressed to kill, or at least dressed to break the hearts and bust the balls of innocent airmen. "That's really kind of awesome."

Then the blonde glanced up, though she couldn't possibly have overheard John's comment, and her eyes locked with his. He gave her his best 'hey there' look, and after a moment she smiled back, and jerked her head in an unmistakable command. Fairfield and the others hooted at John as he stood up, but he didn't care. She was a mystery. He was intrigued. "All right, boys, I'm goin' in."

"Yeah, that's what you think," Warren muttered, behind him.

* * *

The blonde had started stacking away the books as soon as John stood up. She'd also motioned to the bartender, so there was a beer on the table by the time he sat down.

"Lieutenant John Sheppard," he said.

She smiled. "Jeannie McKay."

The conversation was... interesting. Jeannie wasn't obvious about it, but she _was_ clearly trying to find out enough about John to make a decision. About something. John didn't think that something would turn out to be sex, which was kind of too bad; she had a nice body, and big brown eyes behind those Coke-bottle glasses. John had always been a sucker for brown-eyed girls.

He answered each of Jeannie's careful, subtle questions with scrupulous honesty; probably more honestly than he would've answered a woman who actually seemed interesting in dating him, or even screwing him. He'd actually been right about her job, too. Turned out she was a professor of mathematics at Berkeley.

"I've also done some work on base, at the Vandenberg tracking station," she added, "analyzing data from satellite launches, that kind of thing."

"Huh," John said, "most of the women I've known from Berkeley weren't too fond of military types."

"I don't think fond is exactly the best word in my case either, but they have the best toys, so what am I supposed to do?" Jeannie asked, her finger moving in circles over the rim of her glass. "My older brother has just as many problems with authority as I do--probably more--but he was recruited straight out of college into an Air Force think tank, and he's never looked back."

"Hm," John said, and Jeannie smiled, having neatly steered the conversation to another of the questions he suspected had been pre-scripted for the occasion.

"What about you, Lieutenant? Is your family all military?"

Again, John answered a bit more honestly than he otherwise would have, just to see what she'd do with the data. "My father was a pilot too, yeah. My mom died when I was young; no siblings, no other relatives besides some second cousins in Kansas."

"Hm," Jeannie said, her expression not wavering. "I'm sorry--was it sudden?"

"My mom?" John said. Jesus, what was she getting at? "Yeah. It was... It was appendicitis. She went to the hospital and they misdiagnosed her, gave her some ibuprofen and sent her home. By the time she--There wasn't anything they could do."

Jeannie nodded, and didn't say anything for a while, sipping her drink. "Do you ever think about getting married? Starting a family?"

John opened his mouth to give the reflexive, right answer--sure I have, just waiting to meet the right girl, I love kids--and then he cocked his head and studied Jeannie McKay for a moment. "No," he finally said, "No kids. Don't think I'll ever get married, either."

"Hm." Jeannie said again. She finished her drink, pulled a few bills from her pocket and tossed them on the table. "Walk with me?"

* * *

They took a left out of the bar, Jeannie leading almost unconsciously. It was a dull gray evening, the sun low in the scrubby hills. She started to say something, then stopped, seeming nervous for the first time since John had approached her.

"It's a nice night to walk," John said, figuring she'd get to whatever it was in her own time. They walked for a while along the edge of the road, Jeannie's heels shifting slightly in the loose gravel. Her hand tightened and loosened rhythmically on John's arm where she was leaning on him for support, and John started to wonder if he was going to get laid tonight after all.

Jeannie stopped at the curve of the road. "I like you."

"Thanks," John said.

"You're a pilot, and therefore obviously healthy--second generation, even better. Good eyesight, good reflexes, above-average intelligence." she continued seriously. "Very charming, excellent interpersonal skills, and you obviously have some sense of intellectual curiosity, just based on the fact that you've wasted an entire evening trying to figure out exactly what it is that I want from you."

"Hey, I wouldn't say wasted," John said, being very charming.

"Well, you haven't heard what I want yet," Jeannie said.

Then she told him.

* * *

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA  
EIGHT MONTHS LATER

* * *

"So, look, you're not a lesbian, are you?" Rodney asked, sitting uncomfortably on Jeannie's overstuffed couch.

"What!?"

"Wait, that came out wrong," Rodney said, flinching back as Jeannie scowled. Weren't pregnant women supposed to have a tender maternal glow? Jeannie just looked cranky and puffy and freaking huge. How did she not fall over with that growth bulging out of her abdomen? She looked like she was going to pop any second, and to be honest it was freaking Rodney out. So it really wasn't his fault that this particular visit wasn't going well. "What I mean is, it's fine if you _are_ , your life choices are of course your own decision, even the current bizarre nonsensical one, and it's not as if I ascribe to some stupid strictly binary model of human sexuality anyway, so really it's just that this whole thing would make a lot more sense if you were--if you had some secret lesbian lover lurking behind the door that you were going to, you know, raise the child with. So. Uh. Are you?"

"If I could get out of this chair without assistance, I would smack sense into you, Rodney. Or at least give it my best shot," Jeannie said. "But my God, you of all people should understand why I don't have any shred of sentimentality about the institution of marriage. I don't want a husband-- _or_ a wife--that's the last thing in the world that I want. But I do want a child, and I'm _having_ a child. It doesn't mean I'm a lesbian, it just means I'm running my own life the way I want to. So deal already!"

"Okay!" Rodney said, throwing up his hands.

After a second Jeannie squinted at him. "Did you just come out to me?"

"Um." Rodney thought about it. "I guess? A little?"

"Huh," she said. "Does Mom know about this?"

"Oh, don't even think about it," Rodney snorted. "The shame of the pregnant unwed daughter beats the shame of the slightly, in theory, queer son, any day of the week." Jeannie continued to scowl and look puffy, but really, there was no argument there and she knew it.

"So what kind of guy did you pick?" Rodney asked, because he couldn't _not_ ask--it was kind of a fatal flaw, admittedly, but still. He really kind of had to.

"What?" Jeannie blinked.

"I mean, they give you your pick at the, the bank, right?" Rodney said, suddenly wishing he'd never even asked, because he was giving _himself_ mental images, and wow, that was way too much imaginary information. "I mean, like, pictures? No, I guess they wouldn't have pictures. But they have profiles, don't they, so you can select an appropriate genetic donor? I hope you picked someone really intelligent, otherwise it seems like it would be kind of a waste. Of incubation time, if nothing else."

"Oh," Jeannie said, "right, yeah." She looked shifty for a second. Shifty and puffy. "Well, as a matter of fact, I did."

Oh, lovely, Rodney thought, Fantastic. Perfect. She'd probably picked some football player or firefighter or something equally cliched and ridiculous. She was going to pop out some hairy little terror who would enjoy torturing small animals. "Hey, whatever," he said, "as long as you're happy, I suppose."

"Good," Jeannie said, "because I really am." And even Rodney had to admit that she _did_ look happy, maybe happier than Rodney had ever seen her.

Happy, and also really _spectacularly_ puffy, especially around the face.

He decided not to mention that part.

* * *

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO  
NINE YEARS LATER

* * *

Usually on Fridays, when Rodney picked Sara up from school, he preferred to just get her in the car and go. But on days when the world had nearly blown up twice before five--and when Lt. Colonel Carter had come up with the solution all by herself, _both_ times, which did kind of sting--Rodney was more apt to sit around and let her run around to her heart's content first. Then there was a lot less energy to deal with at home, and Rodney could send Sara to bed early and get on with writing the post-mortem reports for the crisis du jour and, maybe more importantly, the apologetic e-mails.

This time he hadn't done much, just called Sam and Jonas "the chucklehead twins" and maybe made a snide reference to Carter's unfortunate solar-system-blowing-up incident. Not so bad, considering the stress they'd all been under. A person said things, in the heat of the moment--it was nothing serious, and he and Sam were used to each other's personality quirks by now--it would hardly be conducive to a productive working relationship for Rodney to start censoring himself at this late date, would it?

That kind of thing slid right off Jonas' back anyway.

And besides, they had been acting like a couple of complete and total chuckleheads... Rodney frowned, suddenly noticing that there was a weirdo standing at the edge of the schoolyard watching Sara and her friends boot their soccer ball around. Rodney was not a paranoid parent--he really wasn't, there was a difference between being paranoid and being careful, no matter what anybody said--but he didn't think it was necessarily paranoid to have noticed this guy. He wasn't any of the parents that Rodney knew by sight, his clothes were just a little too rumpled, the afternoon was not quite bright enough for the dark glasses he was wearing... and he was watching the kids just a bit too intently. Rodney wandered over.

"Nice day."

"Yeah," the guy said, not taking his eyes off the kids as they ran and hollered.

"Rodney McKay," Rodney said, sticking out his hand. The guy tilted his head back, then offered his hand in return.

"John Sheppard."

His hand was warm, not clammy. Not that that meant anything. Rodney stuffed his hand back in his pocket and turned his attention to the kids again. If Sheppard were some kind of pervert, he'd hopefully take off now, unnerved by Rodney's approach.

Sheppard didn't take off. "One of those kids yours?"

"Yeah," Rodney said, focusing in on Sara. "What about you? Got kids?"

Sheppard didn't say anything for a long moment, which was long enough for all kinds of weird scenarios to unspool in Rodney's head, but all he finally did was take his sunglasses off and shrug.

"One, yeah," he said, and even then Rodney still didn't get it.

"Not one of those in particular, though," Rodney continued, mostly trying to be annoying so that Sheppard would freaking leave already, "because you're not Liz' dad, you're a little too Caucasian to be Crystal's father, slightly too male to be one of Nina's two mommies, and you're not Sara's dad, because _I_ \--"

He broke off at the look that had flashed across Sheppard's face when he'd mentioned Sara--as if he'd been slapped, hard, and was trying to hide how much it hurt. As Rodney's eyes widened, the other man's expression darkened, guilty but defiant.

"Holy shit," Rodney said, suddenly _really_ looking at Sheppard. At Sheppard's pointed chin, his narrow but expressive eyes--features that Rodney saw on his adopted daughter's face every day. "It's, you're--Who the hell are you? Who do you think you _are?_ " he said, trying to sound forceful but probably just sounding gut-punched. "You can't just walk into my life like this, our lives, and--"

"I'm not! I wasn't going to!" Sheppard held up his hands in surrender. "McKay, I wasn't going to do anything, I just wanted to _see_ her--"

"You could have seen her when she was born," Rodney said. "She's nine fucking years old--or you know, you could have showed up when Jeannie _died_ \--where the hell have you been anyway?"

"Panama," Sheppard snapped, "Germany, Texas, Cambodia, Greenland and various other places, including about three months as a P.O.W. and some other stuff that's classified. I didn't know--"

"How could you not--?" Rodney said, then glanced over at the kids and lowered his voice. "How could you--what the hell are you doing here?"

"Look, McKay, I liked your sister," Sheppard said stiffly. "She was--I liked her, obviously, and I was in California yesterday and I thought I'd look her up. I--I'm sorry she--I'm sorry for your loss, but I don't _know_ you, so I wanted to come out and see Sara. Just one time, to see if she was okay, and I'm shipping out to god damn Antarctica in twelve hours, so I'm not going to interfere in your lives, okay? I just wanted--I just wanted to see her."

"Dad!" came a shout from the field, and Rodney tensed. Sara galloped towards them, the barrettes clipped into her short curls glittering colorfully. "Dad, Dad, Dad!"

Rodney turned. "What?" he shouted back, a little more sharply than usual. "What, what?"

"I want to go over to Corrie's--"

"Let's see," Rodney began, hands on his hips, "can we phrase that as a question?"

"Let's see," Sara drawled, matching his pose, "can _we_ go over to Corrie's tonight and watch movies?"

"Hm," Rodney said, because it was always important to give the impression that you were taking your kids seriously and thinking about the ideas they were presenting to you, not just making a snap decision without giving their suggestions the proper consideration they deserved. "No!"

"We're not going to watch R rated movies or anything!" Sara insisted. "And sometimes you let me watch R rated movies, so you shouldn't say no just because one time I watched something you didn't approve, because--"

Rodney crossed his arms. "No, no, no--I've had a really hard day, work _sucked_ , and I just want to get some Chinese and go home, so how about that?"

"Dad!" Sara whined.

"Sara!" Rodney whined back. "Come on, your face will stick like that."

"I don't care if it sticks like this!" Sara glared. "I look _fine_ like this!"

Rodney took a deep breath and blew it out again. "You still have too much energy. Go do a lap of the field. Go, go. Run! I want to see you hit that tree and the swing set. No cutting corners!"

He pointed, and Sara took off. Rodney turned back to Sheppard. He was completely prepared for the usual glare or shocked look, or maybe a negative comment about Sara's t-shirt, which had a cartoon rabbit on it mournfully proclaiming 'You suck and that's sad.' Rodney was also completely prepared to punch Sheppard in the face for having the audacity to even silently criticize his parenting skills, but instead Sheppard was grinning like a dope, his eyes suspiciously bright, staring after Sara with a truly impressive amount of awe.

"Wow." he said. "Wow, she's really something."

Rodney told himself not to be charmed, told himself to look at the situation logically. Logically, he should tell Sheppard to turn around and walk right the hell out of their lives; of course, logically he should've never adopted Sara in the first place, and that hadn't turned out so awfully. He hadn't accidentally killed her yet, had he? Which had been his main worry.

"People sometimes criticize my parenting methods," he said instead, and Sheppard laughed. "But what they perceive as a 'serious attitude problem' on Sara's part I call a finely tuned bullshit detector accompanied by the ability to clearly and concisely express herself, and frankly those abilities have served me better in life than the sort of hammer-down-the-tall-nail, sit-down-and-shut up pressure to conform to mediocrity that will inevitably be pushed on Sara from everybody in the world _besides_ me, so I see no reason to discourage it. In fact, quite the opposite. What did you say your name was?"

"John Sheppard."

"Right. And you have till tonight," Rodney said. "And then you're shipping out to _Antarctica?_ McMurdo, I assume?"

Sheppard blinked, startled. "Yeah," he said, "I think it's gonna be cool." Then he smiled, and it was _Sara's_ smile, the way she'd tried to smile when she'd broken her arm falling out of a tree last summer, and Rodney had been freaking out on the drive to the hospital. Just alike, right down to the sad angle of his eyes.

Rodney could never really explain why he did what he did next, but maybe it started with the fact that he'd never developed a viable defense against that look--and, well, it wasn't like Sheppard could try and sue for custody from a freaking Air Force base in Antarctica.

"You're _not_ going to try and take Sara away," he said, just to be sure, and Sheppard shook his head.

"No, I wouldn't--I mean, she seems--I wouldn't."

"Okay. Have dinner with us." Rodney said.

"What?" Sheppard said, and Rodney glanced over his shoulder. Sara had just tagged the swing set and was running back towards them again, probably curious about the stranger her dad was talking to.

"We'll say you're an old friend of mine from when I used to consult with the military in Nevada. You don't tell her who you are, you don't get weird, and you don't ask her a bunch of stupid social worker questions about whether or not she likes kittens or has friends. If those are acceptable terms, you can eat with us. How about it, airman?"

"It's _Major_ \--and yes," Sheppard said instantly. "Yes. I--I'd like that."

* * *

Rodney and Sara's favorite Chinese place was within walking distance of the school, so they went there. Rodney and Sara tucked themselves into one side of the booth, and Sheppard sat across from them.

"So you're a pilot? What kind of planes do you fly?" Sara asked. She picked up a piece of chicken curry up from her plate, holding it still, then maneuvered her head to the best position to nip it from the chopsticks. An innovative method, and a tragedy waiting to happen, but Rodney said nothing. One of the first important things he'd learned about kids was that any problem that could be solved with soap and water was (compared to all the other horrible things that could happen) so not a big deal that it wasn't even worth worrying about.

"Well, I like the ones that go really fast, but lately I mostly fly helicopters," John said, tucking into his beef and broccoli like he hadn't eaten in a week.

"Cool," Sara said. "I'm going to be an astronaut," and John's whole face crinkled in delight.

"Yeah, well, last week it was modern dance, and the week before that she wanted to be a horse trainer, so--" Don't get your hopes up, Rodney was going to say, but he cut himself off when Sara scowled.

"Don't invalidate me."

"Oh, God, you have to stop hanging around Nina's moms. There will be no psychobabble at this table."

"You're invalidating me," Sara insisted. "I want to be an astronaut. Why can't I be?"

"No reason!" Rodney threw up his hands, folding like a house of cards. "Absolutely no reason, I got nothin'. You are perfectly capable of being an astronaut, should you so choose." Sara smirked and went back to her innovative new method of eating. "My only point is," he added quickly, "it's not something you can really pick up as a second career and therefore it would naturally require a certain amount of dedication even from an early age," and Sara made her chopsticks open and close at him--talk talk talk.

She was grinning, at _John_ , who was grinning back. Rodney took a deep breath, telling himself not to get mean, not in front of Sara. John seemed to notice that he was growing tense, because he winked at Sara, then turned his attention to Rodney. "So how've you been since Nevada, Rodney?"

He didn't really have to say Rodney's name in that annoying way, Rodney thought. Really, it was just unnecessary.

"Fine," he said, "fine. I work at Cheyenne Mountain now, um, deep space telemetry, making satellites stay up and whatnot." Saving the Earth from aliens and Sam Carter's more crackheaded flights of lunacy on a near-weekly basis sounded so much cooler, of course, but Sheppard probably didn't have anywhere near the proper clearance.

"Did you know my mom?" Sara said, and John barely even blinked, just finished chewing his bite of broccoli.

"Why d'you ask that?"

"'Cause if you worked with Dad in Nevada then you've known him for a long time, so maybe you did." Sara shrugged.

"Oh," John said, and looked down at his plate. "I did meet your mom a few times, actually. She was smart, like you. And pretty. She didn't seem like a funny person at first, but she could be really sharp once you got to know her." He thought for a moment. "She liked butter pecan ice cream. That was her favorite."

"I only like vanilla ice cream." Sara said.

"Yeah?" John said, and smiled down at his plate. "That's my favorite too."

* * *

John didn't really know why he'd come to Colorado Springs. What if it had turned out that McKay was some neglectful absent-minded professor, or some mean son of a bitch who'd hated his sister and kept his daughter locked in a cage in the basement? What could John have even done? That weekend in Casmalia, Jeannie had opened her briefcase and laid out enough legal paperwork to choke a horse--she'd signed ten different things all negating her right to pursue him for any kind of child support, and he'd signed about fifty different things promising he'd stay the hell away and out of her life. He supposed that if it came down to it, he could've tried some kind of legal Hail Mary and hoped for a judge sympathetic enough to do something way out of line, but then what? He wasn't cut out to be anyone's damn father.

It would've been smarter to just stay away. Good or bad, Sara McKay's life wasn't any of his business. But just like all the other stupid, reckless decisions he'd ever made, John couldn't make himself regret it, now that it was done.

It was amazing. _She_ was amazing. A funny little blonde version of John, a tiny little piece of him sitting there sassing her dad with a grin. And she wanted to be an astronaut. And okay, maybe also a horse trainer and a modern dancer--but also? An astronaut. She could probably do it, too, if she had anything like her mom's drive. God, it was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to John, and after a while it just got too hard to make himself stop smiling.

He tried not to stare at Sara too much during dinner, as that would probably fall under McKay's definition of "getting weird," so he spent most of the meal aiming his stupid grins at McKay, who to be honest he was almost as crazy about, at this point. The guy was obviously not what you might call a _traditional_ dad, but hell. John's dad had spent eighteen years trying to crush _John's_ 'serious attitude problem' out of him by any means necessary, and had only succeeded in encouraging it; so why shouldn't McKay encourage it? Maybe she'd get it out of her system before she seriously fucked up her life. McKay seemed to not mind John's goofy looks too much, his mouth quirking slightly as if he understood exactly what John was thinking. Maybe he did.

Sara excused herself after a while to hit the ladies' room, and John slumped back in his chair, rubbing his thumb over the corner of his mouth. He'd been so screwed up lately, it almost felt weird to feel good about something. The order to leave his men behind, the one he'd disobeyed, the friends he'd lost... he felt small and fucking guilty about it, but he'd almost been looking forward to getting to McMurdo, if only so it would finally sink in: they were through with him, he was done. Pretty soon he wouldn't have to care any more, about anything.

"I don't even remember now why I decided to look up Jeannie," he told McKay. "But I'm glad I did."

He nodded. "We weren't--close. I mean, honestly, I didn't even know she _knew_ you. Personally. I thought she got a, a donation," he said, gesturing descriptively with his chopsticks, although not too descriptively for a family restaraunt. "If you know what I--"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," John said. "And she did. Well, sort of."

"I don't need to hear about it." Rodney said quickly.

"No, I just mean we weren't dating or anything. She knew what she wanted, she wanted a kid. I was around and she, uh, liked my genes, I guess." John shrugged.

"They're good genes," Rodney said. "No complaints."

"Thank you," John said, and took a breath. Sarah would be back any second, so. "How did she... how did she die? The lady at Berkeley didn't say."

"Ah." Rodney nodded. "It was an accident. Car accident. Stupid. She was riding her bike, the asshole was drunk. They, um... they said it was quick, I don't know how they could know that for sure. But that's what they said."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well." Rodney met his eyes, but didn't say anything more.

John looked back, then jerked his head subtly as Sara came out of the ladies' room and headed back to the table. Rodney picked up the gesture, but twisted around to check for himself, thus negating any subtlety pretty effectively. Sara rolled her eyes as she slid back into her seat. John was really starting to wonder if it was possible for a kid's eyes to get stuck like that.

"Dad," she said, "everyone else at school has their ears pierced."

"Ah," Rodney said. "I'll assume that you're purposely starting the discussion with the argument that is absolutely least likely to sway me?"

"Why can't I skip a grade?" Sara demanded.

"Well, obviously not because I expect them to be teaching you anything you don't already know," Rodney said, answering the question neatly despite the apparent non sequitur. "You're there to learn to interact with people socially. You can skip grades when you're in high school; you'll appreciate it more, trust me."

"Well, if I'm supposed to learn to fit in socially then I should have my ears pierced!"

"That is logical," John observed.

"It would in fact be logical if 'interacting with people' was the same thing as 'fitting in with people,' and while the distinction is subtle it is also quite important," McKay said, glaring. "Discussion closed."

The discussion was clearly not closed. "I am the only girl in my class who doesn't have her ears pierced! Making me an outcast doesn't help me make friends!"

"All right," McKay said, putting his chopsticks down on the edge of his plate. "You know what? You can build a nuclear device in the garage this year or you can get your ears pierced, pick one--"

"Ears pierced!"

"--oh, are you kidding me?!" McKay yelled.

"Ears pierced! You said!" Sara matched his volume, pointing at John. "He heard you! You said yes!"

John glanced around at the couple of other people in the restaraunt, but their table wasn't getting as many stares as John might have expected. Well, McKay _had_ said they came here often.

"I know I did, more fool me, and I won't go back on it, so just settle down." McKay grumbled. "I'm just completely taken aback by your total lack of priorities! I thought you really wanted the nuke!"

Sara looked honestly regretful for a second. "I can still build it when I'm thirteen, though, right?"

"Wait," John said, his attention snapping back to McKay, "wait, you mean you're not kidding? A nuke?"

"Non-working model," McKay assured him with a sigh. "I built one myself in grade six. I thought it could be sort of a family tradition, you know, a special father-daughter bonding time, just the two of us. Two, the smallest prime number, indivisible, it's kind of beautiful actually, but I guess nobody but me really appreciates that sort of thing..."

"Oh, whatever, Dad," Sara said, "you can help me pick out earrings, okay?"

"Yes, fine, all right. But if you forget to disinfect the holes punched in your face, don't come crying to me when your ears fall off. Because they will."

"Fine, then!"

"Okay! Fine!"

"Yay! Fine," Sara said, and grinned.

After dinner they walked a bit further down the block to get ice cream. John would've really started to wonder about how Sara had her dad wrapped around her little finger, if it wasn't for the fact that Sara was the one that had to be talked into it by Rodney.

"What?" Rodney said when he caught John giving him a look. "I really did have a sucky day at work. Chuckleheads, all of them. If a satellite ever falls on Cheyenne Mountain you'll know who to blame. In short, I deserve ice cream."

"Can I have two scoops?" Sara ran ahead, not waiting for an answer.

"What do you think this is, Christmas?" Rodney yelled after her, but she had already reached the door of the ice-cream shop. "One scoop, you can have one--!"

This was probably the last opportunity John would have to say something to McKay without Sara overhearing. He frowned, then stopped McKay with a hand on his chest as he was about to follow Sara into the shop.

"McKay..."

"What?"

He didn't really know what he was going to say. "My mother died when I was young, too, and I..."

"Yes?" McKay said after a second of silence, his tone impatient but not as sharp as it had been a moment ago. "Spit it out, Major, she's getting a freaking bucket of ice cream in there, I can _sense_ it."

"You're doing a good job," John said. "I'm glad she's--I mean, if she couldn't be with Jeannie, then I'm glad she's with you."

McKay stared at him for a second more, and John almost thought he might be pissed--like he _needed_ John's approval, anyway? But then he turned away and dug in the pocket of his khakis, pulling a small palmtop out and flipping it open. "Give me your e-mail address."

"What?" John said. Rodney tapped the stylus against the keyboard impatiently.

"E-mail address," he said. "I'll send you some baby pictures, if you want them. Come on, hurry it up, the thirty-seven flavors wait for no man."

There was a kind of mathematical beauty to knowing, with razor-sharp precision, exactly how screwed you were, and later John thought that it was actually kind of cool in a horribly ironic way that he could pinpoint the exact spot, with GPS accuracy, where he'd fallen completely ass over teakettle in fucking love with the man who was raising his biological spawn: on the sidewalk in front of a god damn Baskin Robbins in Colorado Springs. If he could get ahold of Rodney's palmtop, John thought, it had probably recorded exactly when Rodney had input his e-mail address, and so he'd be able to backdate about three seconds to the exact moment, as well. He didn't know why the thought was comforting, but it sort of was.

* * *

It was something to hold onto, while he was stationed at McMurdo, waiting for the clock to run down so that his superiors could kick him to the curb, just how everyone had always expected he'd end up. It was something to think about while he was flying people around like a glorified taxi driver, except without actually being very glorified. It did hurt, of course, a dull kind of ache, but it was a better hurt than the kind John had been in before. And Rodney actually did e-mail him those baby pictures.

He'd helped make that little red squishy baby--John couldn't quite wrap his mind around it, even now that he'd met her. He'd put that trout-slapped happy look on Jeannie McKay's face. He'd helped make Sara. Maybe he hadn't been a real big part of the process, but he'd contributed, and that was _something_.

"I warn you," Rodney typed in the e-mail, "she was a completely unattractive baby, but then, I've since learned that most actual babies are. Sara says hello, by the way; she remembers you fondly as the guy that made it impossible for me go back on the ear piercing decision. Thanks a lot for that. No sign of infection yet, but these things can come out of nowhere. I remain vigilant."

"Good," John wrote back, "you do that. I didn't get a chance to look at her ears while I was down there, but I hope she got your sister's, not mine. Thanks for the pictures, they're great."

That was the whole text of the e-mail that John sent in reply, and he figured McKay probably wouldn't write back. He'd seemed like a busy guy, a single parent with a stressful job, and probably it would be simpler for everyone if John just slipped right out of the McKay's lives. But when Rodney wrote back, the letter was three pages long, all about the weather in Colorado Springs and the new housekeeper's cat allergy which she'd lied about because apparently Rodney paid his housekeepers stupendously well, and then the idiots Rodney worked with, and it only got back to the ears thing near the end of the third page.

"I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about your ears," Rodney had typed, after the page of complaints about think-tank idiots and military morons. ("No offense, of course.") John could almost hear him, vaguely baffled and snippy, and how weird was it to have this guy's voice in his head, when he'd only known him for less than a day?

"But Sara's ears are perfectly normal," the e-mail continued, "apart from the fact that they now are stylishly perforated. Oh, and now that she's won that battle, she wants to dye her hair, which was also something that I arbitrarily decided would be an activity that could wait till age thirteen. _I_ don't think that's unreasonable. I think she's just taking on these small, meaningless rules to wear me down in preparation for the larger battles about important issues like cars and boys, both of which I have decided Sara will not have any contact with until her mid-thirties. Her latest tactic is threatening to become an anthropologist, which I think is just _mean_."

That was it, followed by Rodney's initials down at the bottom, RM. Habit, maybe, from all the memos he had to deal with at his job. It was kind of cute.

John clicked 'reply' and started to type. "What's wrong with anthropology? You can get a doctorate in it, can't you?"

The letter he got in response was five and a half pages long.

* * *

"I'm glad you guys liked the pictures I sent--I tried to get some good ones. As for what McMurdo's like, well, it's different. Some ways it's like a big city, all different kinds of people from all over the world, everything going on the double around the clock. Some ways it's like a small town--there's maybe four, five hundred people here now, though we'll get more as summer comes in. Sometimes it can almost seem too crowded, though you don't have to go too far to get away from that."

"It's gorgeous from the air, though. Maybe the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen."

* * *

"In revenge for me sticking to my guns on the hair thing, Sara has decided to become--get this--a _cultural_ anthropologist. I feel sick, seriously, very nauseated. I think maybe it would be a good idea to ship her off to Antarctica to live with the penguins. Please let me know about the feasibility of this plan. She has plenty of warm clothes."

* * *

"Hey, guess what. There's snowboarding here."

* * *

"I see--snowboarding--it all begins to make sense now. Obviously it's something about _your_ genes that has caused Sara to believe that she should be allowed to own a skateboard. Ordinarily I would encourage her desire to break into such a traditionally male-dominated field, but for some odd reason I have a hard time with any form of transportation that doesn't actually have a steering mechanism, a seat belt, an air bag, or any form of BRAKES."

* * *

"Oh, lighten up, McKay. What's the worst that could happen. Don't answer that... About your other question, yeah, I was pretty quiet as a kid--used to go off by myself and run a lot, or hole up someplace with a book and just plow through it. I read the whole unabridged 'Count of Monte Cristo' when I was fifteen--something like a thousand pages, but I finished it. Same thing with running, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, something you did on your own, not to anybody else's standards or goals. So I wouldn't worry too much. I mean, she's your kid, you'd know, but if it was me, I wasn't sulking, I just needed to be off by myself sometimes. I hope that helps."

* * *

"The point isn't really that I think it's too dangerous, it's obvious that it's _dangerous_. The point is that I can't teach her how, and I don't trust anyone else to. And by 'don't trust anyone else' I basically mean 'don't want to have a fatal heart attack at the age of thirty-five,' and really when I say that I'm thinking about the welfare of--well, of the whole country. Some very important projects crucial to national security depend on my input, if you must know, and if being able to maintain them over the length of my natural lifespan means that Sara has to keep the skin on her elbows and knees intact, then that is a patriotic sacrifice that she is just going to have to make."

"Besides, there's always... I mean, there's always going to be some asshole out there in a car, and I worry. You know?"

* * *

"Yeah, I know. So listen, McKay, this might be an out of line question, but what happens if national security suffers a loss and you die? Who gets Sara? I know you must have something lined up, you're not stupid. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. I just wanted to ask."

* * *

"I don't mind at all, Major. I have a co-worker, Jonas Quinn. Despite what I might have said about him in the past, quite honestly when we're not butting heads I must admit he's very intelligent in a strange kind of out-of-the-box way. Perhaps arguably more importantly, he's a good man, a decent human being. He doesn't have any family in the area, and he borrows Sara sometimes because he likes to have an excuse to go to family movies, or the Children's Museum. He was quite honored when I brought up the subject, and..."

* * *

"I just wondered, that's all."

* * *

"At this point it'd be somewhat odd if you suddenly didn't care. I've noticed that about Sara too; she doesn't get too attached to very many things, but she gets amazingly attached to the oddest things nearly instantly, whether it's the new girl at school or the stray cat that's started showing up for meals, though you can bet I'm putting my foot down about that one--who knows what kind of diseases it might have, my God, I can't even imagine. I had a cat in grad school that used to get into fights with feral cats, and every time I'd have to drag her in for shots it would take _hours,_ and..."

* * *

TWO YEARS LATER

* * *

"No real news. Couple days ago a supply plane had a bad landing and tore a huge gouge out of the ice runway up on the Ross Ice Shelf. Some incoming flights had to boomerang around because of the damage, head on back to the mainland. I was hoping to get some hiking in this weekend, but thanks to the glitch I'm going to be on chopper duty for the next three days straight. It's funny, you wouldn't think there'd be that much to do out here on the ice, but my time's almost up and there's still things I didn't get done. It's always like that though."

"Hey," Rodney said from the couch, where he was curled up with his laptop on his knees and Boots purring on his sock-clad feet, "could you drag your birthday pictures into the shared folder?"

"Hm?" Sara was stretched out on her stomach in the living room's window seat, her laptop in front of her. "Why?"

"I want to send some to Major Sheppard."

Sara clicked and dragged the folder. "Yeah? Why do you always send him pictures of me?"

"Since when does the universe revolve around you? Maybe I'm sending him pictures of me," Rodney said, feeling very proud of his clever cover story. "I'm usually found in your general vicinity. You're just considered slightly more photogenic, and that's only society's age bias at work." He glanced up after a moment of silence. Sara was giving him a funny look, contemplative and weirdly adult. God, she was getting so big.

"Dad," she said, "I'm eleven years old."

"Yes, I attended the party," Rodney said, going to the network drive and starting to click through the pictures. "I paid for the party. I distinctly remember the subpar pizza and oh look, the large, animatronic mouse. I mean, I'm not saying I want you to grow up any faster, no way, but definitely when it comes to your choice of--"

"Anyway!" Sara broke in. "What I want to say is, you can talk to me. About stuff."

Oh my God, Rodney thought, it was the sex talk. Or, oh lord, the menstruation talk. Hadn't he paid the nanny before last to take care of the talk? Both talks? One of the nannies, anyway. Weren't there plenty of age-appropriate, clearly illustrated books on all these subjects in the well-stocked library just down the hall, just so he'd never have to talk about them?

"Stuff?" he said.

"Dad!" Sara said exasperatedly. She put her laptop down, came over to the couch, and picked up Boots off Rodney's feet, pulling the short-haired cat into her lap and stroking its fur. "I know that John is your boyfriend!"

Rodney's hands froze a centimeter above the keyboard. "...What?"

Sara rolled her eyes, threw out her arms and fell backwards onto the cushions with a thump. Boots meowed in protest and jumped off the couch to hide under the table. "Come on, I'm not a baby! I know! I've known forever!"

"No, but," Rodney stammered, sitting up, "he's not. We're just good--I'm not--well, I mean I--We're not boyfriends."

"Oh, fine! Be that way!" Sara rolled off the couch, grabbed her laptop and stomped out of the living room.

"Oh my god. Sara," Rodney called after her, "c'mon now--"

"Not! A! Baby!" Sara yelled, and stomped up the stairs.

Rodney waited. Her door slammed. He looked back down at his laptop.

"Here are some pictures from Sara's birthday party," he typed. "By the way, I understand that Jeannie absolved you of all financial responsibility for Sara pre-birth, but you might want to start saving up now so you can make contributions to a therapy fund, as apparently our regular correspondence has convinced Sara that you and I are boyfriends. (Her word, not mine.) And if we ever do plan on telling her the truth about what relationship you actually do have to her, which I suppose wouldn't be a terrible idea someday, it will be nice to be able to get her some seriously professional help immediately afterward. This is a joke, by the way, my health insurance is fantastic and Sara is completely covered, but she really does think that we're hiding a secret passion in an attempt to protect her immature sensibilities, which of course offends her greatly. It's a bad habit of mine to leap to a conclusion and not move from it, so she gets it from me, I suppose, but it's still a rather irritating thing to be on the wrong side of. Anyway..." He thought for a second, deleted 'Anyway' and started a new paragraph.

"That's the news from suburbia. Oh, also, will you try not to get frostbite on that hike you mentioned? You probably already went out and came back, but honestly, it's really very easy to do damage to your minor extremities without knowing it, and it would be a pity to horribly cripple yourself right before you actually get to come home." He initialed the e-mail and sent it off before he could change his mind.

* * *

John sat frozen in the uncomfortable plastic chair in the McMurdo computer lab and stared at his e-mail. Oh my holy jesus christ, he thought.

"A secret passion," okay, that was one thing. Probably nothing. He didn't _think_ his letters had been giving McKay any hints about John's weird little crush. He'd tried to keep them short at first--breezy--but for some reason McKay just couldn't get with the program, and he wrote _real letters_ , like once he started typing he just couldn't stop. Like maybe he didn't have anyone he could really talk to, either, outside of work anyway. Okay, John could have just not written back, but he _needed_ the news and the pictures of Sara, needed something to keep him from going nuts up here on the ice. So he had to write back, and he couldn't just be curt and impersonal with his replies. Not if he still wanted to hear about Sara. Not if he still wanted McKay to keep writing to him.

And he did. He really did, and okay, _fine_ , it was more than a weird little crush, it had been going on for two years now, even though McKay had never given any hint that he felt anything for John besides a sort of abstract gratitude for being around and donating some stuff to his sister, and a sort of not-so-abstract contempt for loving the 'Back to the Future' trilogy.

No hint except for: "Home." Specifically, "it would be a pity to horribly cripple yourself right before you actually get to come home."

John growled and hit 'print,' grabbing it as soon as the page jittered out of the computer lab's printer. McKay didn't mean that. He meant "when you get _stateside_ ," he meant "when you get back to _your_ home." He didn't...

He didn't mean what John wanted him to mean. There was a sick sort of tightness in his throat. Christ, John wanted that. He wanted it more than anything. And McKay had no goddamn clue.

He folded the letter up and stuck it in his pocket, and for the first time in a couple of months he just signed out of his internet session and went back to his quarters without replying to Rodney first. It didn't matter. Nothing he did now really mattered. Two weeks left, and then he was out.

* * *

The next time he could get back to the lab was two days later. Rodney had written him another letter without waiting for him to reply to the first one, which was kind of odd. Actually John couldn't remember him ever doing that before, and then he realized. Something was wrong--something had happened. His heart was pounding as he clicked--

"Listen," the letter said, "I don't know what your plans for the future might be, but I think I know you at least well enough to state with some certainty that you don't actually have any. You can spend a couple of nights in the spare room here; we're a bit between housekeepers at the moment and Sara's once again insisting that she's old enough to get along without a nanny. I would totally agree, if she could drive herself to soccer practice, but as you are well aware, she won't be getting a car for two and a half decades. Anyway, my point is, come and visit. Let me know. RM."

It was a pretty short letter, for Rodney. Nothing about the boyfriends thing. Maybe Rodney had straightened Sara out on that issue already and just forgot to mention it, because it was so completely the _opposite_ of a big deal it wasn't even worth talking about. Or maybe that was why he wanted John to visit, maybe he wanted them to tell Sara about John being her biological father, which might be easier if John were there in person. But he'd have probably mentioned it if he wanted to do that. Or maybe John was just overthinking this whole thing, and Rodney was just being polite.

And when it came right down to it, John didn't really have anyplace else to go.

He clicked 'reply.'

* * *

There was a knock at the door. Rodney had two armfuls of confidential SGC paperwork spread out on the table in the breakfast nook. Technically he was supposed to keep this stuff upstairs, in his study, which had a palmprint ID lock and an actual small safe to keep disks and files in when he wasn't working on them, but it didn't have easy access to the fridge or the coffeemaker, so if that was Jonas at the door bringing Sara home, Rodney would probably be in trouble with Sam come Monday. Rodney grumbled to himself and opened the door.

It wasn't Jonas, it was John Sheppard. He grinned at Rodney and turned to wave his taxi off. God, even weirdly pale and obviously tired as hell, he was just as mind-bogglingly handsome as Rodney remembered.

"I thought--I thought you were going to call," Rodney said. "I would have picked you up at the airport--well, I would have sent a car."

"It's cool," John said, then shifted, fidgeting with the strap of his duffel bag. "It is cool, right?"

"Yeah, yes of course. Come in. Uh, don't look at those papers, they're confidential material. Hey, I said _don't_ ," because of course John had immediately craned his neck to look closer.

"It's math," he said.

"Of course it is. What'd you expect, naked ladies?"

"Is there _much_ porn involved in deep space telemetry?"

"Mostly just math. Very important, confidental math," Rodney said, shoving papers into folders by the stack. At least it wasn't pictures of spaceships; he'd have a slightly harder time passing that off as something unremarkably boring. "Uh, the guest room is through there, to your left--you can toss your bag in there."

John nodded and moved off. Rodney finished putting his papers away, turned the light off in the nook, then went in the kitchen and stuck a frozen pizza in the microwave; maybe Sheppard was hungry.

"So," he said, as John came into the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"No, I'm okay," John said.

"Pizza?" Rodney gestured at the microwave. "I'm having some anyway, I kind of got involved in the, uh, work, and forgot to eat. Sara's usually the one who reminds me about things like that."

"She asleep?"

"No, she's out at a movie with a co-worker of--oh, I've mentioned him to you, of course. She's with Jonas. They're going to see that thing with the penguins."

"Oh," John said. He looked around the kitchen. "This is a nice place you've got here."

"Yes, well. Independent military contractor, I don't make peanuts. And of course it helps to have a housekeeper to keep the place up. Honestly I don't know how I ever survived without one, I mean, before Sara."

Awkward silence followed that pronouncement. So awkward. Oh God. Rodney occupied himself getting down a couple of plates. It was always so strange to meet someone in person that you _really_ only knew through e-mail--it was weird, like meeting Sam for the first time only knowing her from her papers and reports. She'd blasted his expectations of her to smithereens...

Rodney remembered the vague outlines of Major Sheppard, of course--tall, darkly handsome, Sara's chin. A bundled-up shape in front of a snowdrift in crappy camera-phone pictures, over the last two years. He'd abused his security clearance to look up Sheppard's records, too, and it was nothing but just _like_ the Air Force to get rid of a man who obviously used his best judgement when he thought it appropriate, instead of slavishly following stupid orders.

But now Sheppard was leaning awkwardly against the counter, gazing out the kitchen window over the sink. Like a wireframe gaining texture, or a black and white picture gaining color, he was turning into a real person before Rodney's eyes. That rusty drawl, the dark five o'clock shadow roughening the lines of his face, the way his eyes were actually really pale, kind of bottomless--

The microwave beeped and Rodney jumped. God, he'd been staring.

It was like a curse, Rodney thought as he grabbed the pizza out of the microwave, hissing as he burned his fingers. A curse of gorgeous Air Force majors who turned out to be not what you'd expected. Not what you'd expected at all.

* * *

Rodney split the pizza into halves and gave John his half, pulling two bottles of water out of the fridge as well.

"Thanks," John said and yawned suddenly, covering his mouth. "Sorry I'm so quiet, it's just." He shrugged. "Tired, I guess."

"Sure," Rodney said. Boots came into the kitchen, meowing plaintively, and and Rodney leaned over and gave the cat a piece of sausage. When he straightened up again, John was looking at him oddly, and Rodney stared back. "Major?"

John's expression didn't change. "These last couple of years have been some of the worst of my life," he said, his voice calm and even. "Just about the only thing that let me _stand_ it was your letters. You and Sara. I wanted to thank you for that."

Rodney blinked, but--of course. Never what you expected. "Oh--no, really. There's no need to--" he said, telling himself to look away, change the subject. Lighten the mood. Put on some coffee. "It was really nothing, Major."

"John," John said, finally looking away, and Rodney let out a breath, taking a bite of his pizza. "And it _was_ something."

"You know," Rodney said, "there have been innumerable career opportunities I might have been able to take advantage of if I wasn't tied down to a kid. Sometimes I think about it--the infinite alternate timelines where Jeannie's still around, or where she never had Sara, or where the Weigands took her in, not me--"

"Where who _what_?" John said.

"Oh," Rodney said, "Jeannie didn't leave Sara to _me_ , are you kidding? I mean, you know we weren't that close, and my life was hardly set up for--no, she was supposed to go to these professor friends of Jeannie's, the Weigands, but three weeks before Jeannie died Larry Weigand gets a fucking terminal cancer diagnosis and I guess she didn't have time to--I mean, you never expect--Well, there was just no way they could, so."

"Jesus, Rodney." John said, and the way he said Rodney's name buzzed right down his spine. Rodney flattened his hands out on the table.

"Yeah. Anyway." He shook his head. "I think about it sometimes. The other me, the one that got to get out there and do all that stuff." He smiled at Sheppard for a second, suddenly struck by how rare it was to have a friend that he could actually discuss alternate timelines with, as part of a serious conversation. Well, outside the SGC, anyway. "And I just feel sorry for that sad bastard," he concluded. "Well, okay, it is a comfort sometimes, the multilayered nature of reality, because _some_ version of me is out there. But if I had to choose? I wouldn't trade my life. Not for anything."

"I envy you that," John said, his voice low.

"Well, I _owe_ you for that. And Jeannie," Rodney said, forcing his voice to remain steady so he could get all of this out. Because John wouldn't be staying, not forever, and these were things that needed to be said. In person, not just in an e-mail. "Her, too, you made her _so_ happy." His voice wavered slightly, and he cleared his throat. "So if we're talking about who owes who, then I have about nine years left of being nice to you on--I don't know, on your account."

"Yeah?" John said. He nodded slowly for a second, as if realizing something, or making a decision about something, and Rodney wondered for a second if he'd been just a bit too obvious with the staring, earlier.

He obviously had been, because John stood up and came around to the side of the table, leaning down at an odd angle, supporting himself by resting his elbow next to Rodney's plate. Rodney glanced down for a second, in pure confusion, and when he looked up again John's other hand was on his neck, thumb rubbing hard up his jaw, and then John was kissing him, his mouth hot and desperate and searching.

Rodney made a choked noise against John's mouth and John pulled back immediately, his face simultaneously haloed and shadowed by the lamp above the table. He stared at Rodney, his expression unreadable, but Rodney almost didn't even need to see his expression. He knew John already--he _knew_ him. He reached out, taking John by the shoulder, and slowly drew him close again.

John let out a shuddering breath against Rodney's cheek, and Rodney wrapped his arms around him tightly. "Oh, god," Rodney said, feeling the tension in John's back and arms that didn't show at all in his posture. "Thank god."

"Hm," John said, then pulled back, his lips a teasing curve. "You're not just doing this so you won't have to tell Sara the truth, are you?"

"Oh, if you think it's so easy to raise a child these days without irreparably breaking its brain a few times a year, you are welcome to try. Actually, I'm serious about that, you're welcome to her, she's been insane lately." Rodney gestured to the stairs. "I'll throw in the Playstation. We can pack her stuff right now."

"I don't think I'd be as good a dad as you," John said, and Rodney blinked for a moment, not quite knowing what to say.

"You think I--I'm a good--"

"It's kinda sexy, in a Papa Bear sort of way," John's eyes were wicked, and then his lashes fluttered down onto his cheeks as his lips parted and he leaned into Rodney again.

The Papa Bear comment was either incredibly hot or sort of disturbing, but that was really par for the course as far as Rodney's sex life went. He moved back to lean against the counter, pulling John with him, and knocked over his own chair with a loud bang and a clatter. He jumped, and John grinned and shoved him back against the fridge.

"When's Sara going to be home?" John murmured, bending his head to kiss Rodney's throat.

"Crap," Rodney groaned, "any time now, actually--" John tensed in his arms suddenly, and then Sara loomed out of the unlit living room and shrieked "Ohmygod, _Dad_!"

* * *

"I knew it!" Sara yelled. "Oh my God, I knew it!"

John immediately put as much space as he could between him and Rodney, but it was already way too late. Sara was standing in the kitchen doorway, and a clean-cut guy in a green t-shirt and khaki slacks stood behind her.

"Sorry!" said the guy--Jonas?--said. "I just--We were coming up the steps and I heard a noise--I thought maybe--" He looked wide-eyed at John, then at Rodney. "Was I supposed to keep her out longer, Dr. McKay? Because if so I didn't realize--"

"Oh God, oh God," Rodney said, both hands over his face.

"I knew it!" Sara pointed, all a-quiver like a hunting dog, and that seemed to snap Rodney out of it.

"Yes, yes you did. Now go to your room!"

Sara's jaw dropped. "No freaking way! Dad!"

"We will discuss this tomorrow," Rodney said, "but right now you need to be in your room before my head _explodes_ and I am not kidding!"

"Fine! I just want to say that I knew it all along!" Sara yelled. She shouldered past Jonas and somehow managed to both run _and_ stomp up the stairs simultaneously. "I KNEW IT!"

"Congratulations, you're the smartest girl in the world! Stay in your room for a million years!" Rodney shouted after her.

In the silence that followed, John picked up Rodney's chair and set it upright, then pushed it gently into place again.

"Now, I'm not the parental figure here," Jonas said carefully, "but a million years confined to her room seems slightly, um, punitive?"

"Please stop talking," Rodney said.

"She got really tall all of a sudden, didn't she," John said, knowing that he should be more freaked out, but still kind of stuck on being goofy with joy. Had those been streaks of green in her hair? Rodney hadn't mentioned caving on the hair dye issue.

"Yes, yes." Rodney sighed, squaring his shoulders. "Um. Jonas Quinn, my, uh, friend John Sheppard. John, my co-worker Jonas."

"Hi," John said, extending a hand. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Hi, it's really nice to meet you," Jonas said easily, and shook. "Dr. McKay, are you sure everything's okay?"

"Yes, yes, fine. You can leave now." Rodney said, pushing his hands through the air as if he could make Jonas go away just by gesturing emphatically. Jonas didn't seem offended, though.

"Okay, I'll see you later, then. Goodnight, Dr. McKay. Mr. Sheppard." Jonas waved back and turned to go, moving silently through the darkened living room. Rodney gazed suspiciously after him, only looking back at John after the front door clicked shut behind him.

"A million years?" John said, looking at Rodney.

"Well, relatively speaking, compared to the age of the galaxy--the lifespan of stars--it's hardly any time at all." Rodney muttered.

"Hm," John said. He moved closer, waiting till Rodney met his eyes. Waiting to see that half-disbelieving look on Rodney's face again, even as his lips parted and he shifted, bringing his hands up to catch John's elbows and bring him in tight against his body. "So we'd better work fast."

* * *

John dragged Rodney into the guest bedroom and closed the door. It locked with a sharp click, leaving them in the dark. He pushed Rodney up against the wall, stepped back, and went to his knees.

"John?" Rodney said, then "Oh--oh _god_ \--" as John went to work. His hand crept tentatively into John's hair and stroked gently, and John rubbed his thumb along the inner seam of the fly of his jeans, working his way towards Rodney's dick by touch.

"I should warn you," Rodney said tightly, "it's been a long time since oh god John oh _god_ \--" John worked closer, pressing his mouth to Rodney's cock through the soft, worn cotton of his boxers, feeling it jerk under his lips. "Oh god," Rodney repeated, reaching down and pulling John forcibly to his feet, turning and pressing him back against the door.

"Ow," John said as the doorknob jammed him in the small of his back, making the whole door rattle. "No, don't stop, I'm fine--" he said, shifting aside, but Rodney was backing off, pushing his hands away.

"I can't, I can't--" Rodney said, then backed into something that sounded like the bedpost. "Oof. Ow, goddammit. Could you turn the lights on?"

John sighed and turned them on. Rodney was scrabbling at his fly, zipping his jeans up and adjusting his cock with a wince. "Look," he said, "I want this, I don't think there's any doubt that I want this, but I--She's up there and she--Can it--Can we wait until tomorrow? I'll get her out of the house, I'll sell her to the circus, but right now I _can't_ \--it's part of that 'good dad' thing that you, uh, hopefully still think is incredibly sexy."

John made a face. "Right now, not so m--"

Rodney put a hand on either side of his face, leaned in and kissed him hard. "Great," he said, "sleep well, see you tomorrow," and ducked out of the guest room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

* * *

Weirdly enough, John did sleep well. It was late when he finally drifted awake, drawn by the smell of bacon, the sound of voices, the warmth of the sunlight filling the house. He pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and wandered out into the living room, barefoot. Rodney and Sara were sitting at the kitchen table, Sara in cotton pajamas with little skulls and bones all over them, Rodney in gray sweatpants and a t-shirt that said 'The generation of random numbers is too important to leave to chance.' They had bacon, they had oatmeal and they had apple juice.

And wow, those _were_ blue and green streaks in Sara's hair. It looked really cool.

"81." Rodney said absently, cutting a banana into slices for his oatmeal.

"Square of the sum of its digits," Sara said, stealing one of the banana slices. "15, 52, 203."

"Hm. Oh, who told you about Bell numbers? Was that Sam? Good one. Uh, 191," Rodney said, breaking a bite of bacon off one of the pieces on Sarah's plate and popping it into his mouth.

Sara scowled, then brightened. "Palindromic prime!"

"Nice!" Rodney said, then looked up. "John. Good morning."

"Morning," John said. "Whatcha playin'?"

"Oh," Rodney said, "It's just the integer game. You say a number, or a small series of numbers, and the other person has to figure out something interesting mathematically about the integer or series. For instance, 180 would be the total number of degrees in a triangle--"

"Pfft, easy!" Sara said.

"I know, I know, I'm easing him into it. You give him one."

"300." Sara raised her eyebrows.

"Perfect score in bowling." John said, and pulled out a chair to sit at the table, careful not to step on the cat that was circling around the table legs. "How about, uh, 1,435?"

* * *

"No, no, you can't just make up a number," Rodney said, but not as impatiently as he might have. It was great that John was _trying_ , really. There had been nannies who hadn't tried as hard, over the years--and you'd _assume_ that if you were paying someone the outlandish sums of money that _Rodney_ paid nannies, simple self-preservation would motivate said nannies to refrain from saying things like 'Oh my God, that's the nerdiest game I've ever even heard of,' and yet many times that had turned out to not to be the case at all. "You have to actually pick a number that's--"

"Wait, shut up, I know this one!" Sara said, waving her spoon. "Vampire number!"

Rodney blinked at her, then at John. "What?"

"Vampire number. They're neat!" Sara said. "You take two numbers, like 35 and 41, and multiply them together--"

"And the result contains the same four digits as the original two numbers, 4, 1, 3 and 5. Pretty cool," John said. He reached over and stole a piece of bacon off Rodney's plate, breaking it into tiny pieces and eating them neatly. "The original two numbers are called the _fangs_ ," he added smugly.

Later on Rodney thought to himself that maybe that wasn't the exact moment that he'd fallen in love with John Sheppard. Okay, maybe it was, because he'd always been slow when it came to interpersonal interaction, but it wasn't like it was his _fault_ , he just usually had other things to think about--other, more important things.

But maybe he'd been in love with John for a while. Maybe for a long time. Maybe sitting there, looking at him over the top of Sara's head, was just the first moment that Rodney _realized_ that his feelings for John contained something like that, or were contained within something like that. That they were something more than an uncomfortable, unclassifiable tangle of helpless pity and incredible gratitude and simple liking--a certain comfortable appreciation of a like-minded person--and, well, also a tremendous amount of vaguely unresolved sexual tension. Maybe all these things added together became something much more than the sum of their parts.

Maybe the answer was really very simple after all.

"How about," Rodney said, "three?"

John chewed a mouthful of bacon, then swallowed, looking curiously at Rodney. Rodney got hurriedly up from the table, taking down a glass and pouring him some apple juice.

"Three," John said slowly, as Rodney pushed the glass across the table. He took it and drank, not taking his eyes off Rodney.

"Yeah, there's a certain mathematical, um. Purity? About three. It balances things, it, ah. Lots of things are best in threes. I..." Oh God. Rodney had nothing. Absolutely jack. This was assuredly the crappiest sort of proposal that anyone had ever come up with, and he seriously considered scrapping it entirely and denying that it was even what he'd been trying to do, and then John's eyes went wide and bright. He grinned disbelievingly, leaned over and kissed Rodney hard, then pulled back, glancing at Sara.

Sara was staring pointedly at her bowl of oatmeal, but she was smiling.

"You mean--" John said, and Rodney nodded.

"Yeah," he said, then cleared his throat. "What do you think of three, midget? Good number?"

Sara thought about it, then nodded. "Good number," she said. "Smallest odd prime."

"Well." Rodney grinned and ruffled her hair. "Good. Then it's settled."

John leaned in and put his arm around Sara's shoulders, giving her a short hug. "Just play along with the math games, kiddo." he stage-whispered in Sara's ear. "We're gonna get you a skateboard."

"Oh, sweet!" Sara said.

"Oh yes, great," Rodney said, "because brain damage is _wicked awesome_."

"Relax, we'll wear helmets," John said. "You're the one that was going to let her build a nuke."

"I still am, when she's thirteen and mature enough to handle it. I'm just not sure eleven is quite ready for a skateboard."

"Oh no, it's the best. Younger bones heal a lot faster!" John teased, because he was _evil_ , and Sara giggled.

"Oh, you think he's joking." Rodney poked her shoulder. "He's not joking!"

"Maybe rollerblades to start out on?" John said, and Rodney heaved a sigh.

"Lovely," he said, "fantastic. Perfect." John lifted a hand, apparently meaning to poke Rodney, but his hand wavered and he ended up just tracing his fingers slowly over Rodney's cheek.

"Don't be sarcastic," John said softly.

Rodney swallowed. "Who's being sarcastic?"

"Oh my god," Sara said, launching herself out of her chair. "John, I like you, and Dad, I love you, but if you guys are going to be mooshy and gross I'll just go to my room for a million years." She grabbed her bowl of oatmeal and fled the kitchen.

John looked at Rodney across the table. "So I guess we don't have to sell her to the circus."

"What's the worst you ever got hurt falling off a skateboard?" Rodney demanded.

"Is that really what you want to discuss right now, my childhood skateboard-related injuries?" John said, just as loud music started blasting from the vicinity of Sara's room.

"I'm a worrier," Rodney said, rubbing a hand over his face.

"You're a very odd number," John agreed, nodding.

"Hm," Rodney said. "But you like me, right?"

"Yeah," John said. "I kinda do."

* * *

And they lived happily ever after.

* * *

[the end]

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Small Primes and Square Roots [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4554132) by [cookiemom6067](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiemom6067/pseuds/cookiemom6067)




End file.
